{"id":596,"date":"2026-02-05T09:29:34","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T07:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/sime\/?p=596"},"modified":"2026-02-05T09:45:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T07:45:12","slug":"new-grant-to-advance-wolfram-syndrome-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/sime\/new-grant-to-advance-wolfram-syndrome-research\/","title":{"rendered":"New Grant to Advance Wolfram Syndrome Research"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>New Grant to Advance Wolfram Syndrome Research at the University of Tartu<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A five-year research project titled\u00a0\u201cA New Frontier in Wolfram Syndrome Research: Unraveling Pathophysiology and Pioneering Targeted Therapies\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0will run from\u00a01 January 2026 to 31 December 2030, led by\u00a0Mario Plaas\u00a0at the\u00a0University of Tartu\u00a0(Faculty of Medicine,\u00a0Institute of Biomedicine and Translational Medicine). The project is funded by the\u00a0Estonian Research Council\u00a0through a personal research grant, awarded to Plaas, with the funding period beginning in\u00a02026\u00a0and lasting\u00a0five years\u00a0(total budget 1,35M EUR).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wolfram syndrome 1 (WS) is a rare genetic disorder for which no effective treatment is currently available. The condition is typically characterised by early-onset diabetes, progressive loss of vision and hearing, and neurodegeneration\u2014placing a heavy burden on patients and families and underscoring the urgent need for new therapeutic options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The research team will investigate a central hypothesis: that\u00a0an imbalance between excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmission, together with\u00a0dysregulated autophagy, contributes to the rapid progression of Wolfram syndrome symptoms. By clarifying these mechanisms, the project aims to open new avenues for targeted therapies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To test this approach, the study will use a\u00a0transgenic rat model of Wolfram syndrome\u00a0to evaluate drug regimens designed to address\u00a0GABAergic vulnerability\u00a0and\u00a0autophagy-related dysfunction, including combination strategies that incorporate\u00a0incretin analogs. These approaches are of particular interest because they may also support\u00a0healthy ageing, potentially linking insights from Wolfram syndrome to broader questions in neurodegenerative and metabolic disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By combining advanced disease models with mechanistic and therapeutic testing, the project seeks to both deepen understanding of Wolfram syndrome biology and identify promising directions for future treatment development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Grant to Advance Wolfram Syndrome Research at the University of Tartu A five-year research project titled\u00a0\u201cA New Frontier in Wolfram Syndrome Research: Unraveling Pathophysiology and Pioneering Targeted Therapies\u201d\u00a0will run from\u00a01 January 2026 to 31 December 2030, led by\u00a0Mario Plaas\u00a0at &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":982,"featured_media":599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/sime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/sime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/sime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/sime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/982"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/sime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/sime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":603,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/sime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions\/603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/sime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/sime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/sime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/sime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}